Rules
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: Heroes have stereotypes, cliques and rules about who can be with who. But Beast Boy never followed them, and he fell in love with Terra. Unfortunately, because Terra loves him, she'll never be with him. Some rules can't be broken. BBTerra, oneshot.


There's a rule about people like me, like him. Like us.

Terrakinetics, aquakinetics, aerokinetics, anthomorphs, lumikinetics - everyone is divided. You fall into categories. You're either a morpher, blaster or magic user. And then there are the subgroups. You either morph into animals or objects. You blast with eyes or hands or both or sometimes feet. You practice Japanese magic or Western magic, dark or light or neutral. People with super powers divide like any other group. We form cliques and groups, stereotypes and jokes about one another. And so like any group of people, there are people you are supposed to hang out with and people you aren't supposed to. Everyone knows aliens and humans fall in love and girl villains flirt with boy heroes but ultimately never hook up. You know the rules and the way these things are supposed to go. Everyone does.

There's a stereotype that terrakinetics are uncontrollable, hot tempered, violent, unloving. So I built myself up as a cheerful, cool, mellow person. I didn't want to be a stressed out stereotype. I wanted to be me. I wanted people to see who I really am, not a terrakinetic stereotype. But somehow, I built up too much. People didn't see me. They saw what I wanted them to see. No one ever got past my defenses.

Anthromorphs are known the world over for their control. But that's all Beast Boy had. He didn't have the hatred he was supposed to for me. He didn't clash with me, because he wasn't a stereotype, either. He wasn't a typical, stupid as rocks anthromorph. He was goofy and charming, generous and kind. He wasn't booksmart. He was socially smart. He was everyone's friend. And he disarmed me with that. He ripped away my apprehension with his shyness and his jokes. He was a kind person and a weird person and _real_. He stripped away my fakey calm, and I could truly relax when he was around.

We didn't follow everyone's rules. We weren't stereotypical, so we didn't have an epic clash like you'd think we would have. We connected. We shouldn't have. It was against the rules. But we fell in love anyway.

In the end, the very end, it's because of that that I was able to stand up to Slade. It wasn't about power or control. It wasn't about good or bad, or saving people. For the very first time in my life, someone refused to give up on me. He knew the type, my type. He knew every other super hero would have told him I was out of control, pre-destined for evil and unsalvagable because I lacked the capacity to love. Yet he didn't think about any of that. He didn't ever see me as what I was supposed to be. He saw _Terra_, a confused girl, not a terra_kinetic_. And for the first time, _I_ saw me, not my powers. He was like a slap to the face when I needed it the very most.

It was romantic. It was also not meant to last. I know how the world is. I know how the other super heroes are. The Titans are an anomaly. They combine a human, an alien blaster, an anthromorph, a cyborg and a lumikinetic. They don't follow the rules everyone else has set down. Robin is the leader when it would be politcally correct with super heroes to have, well, _anyone_ else as a leader. Their team is ragtag and filled with virtually all kinds of people. So the other heroes dislike them. The Titans have had to fight, claw and climb their way to the top. It took everything they had to be recognized as a valid super hero team. The respect they've earned came at the cost of many months of hard won battles.

So even though I know who I am, I will never tell anyone.

Beast Boy was supposed to hate me. You've got to understand that. He was never meant to be my friend, and certainly not my boyfriend. The other heroes outside the Titans gave him crap about it. They made fun of him or else they warned him I'd kill him one day. Everyone was thinking it, even though the Titans themselves never did. Even Raven saw I wasn't a stereotype, but the outside world? The world of super heroes, their prejudices and their cliques? They would never see that. All they say was a kid who didn't hate who he was supposed to. In the end, I almost proved the stereotype right.

When I became a hero at the last second, perceptions changed. My apparent death caused the mockery to turn to sympathy. It's like a vampire hunter and a vampire. In retrospect, a romantic concept. That's just it, though. It's a romantic _concept_. It's not a romantic reality. They'll leave him alone about how much he loves me if I'm officially dead. They'll let him grieve in private and keep their respect for him in public. My sacrifice turned Beast Boy around from being called a lovesick moron to being quietly respected.

If I come back into his life, I will ruin him. My presence will make him a loser in the eyes of everyone. He will go back to the anthromorph who didn't know his place. He'll go back to being held in the lowest respect when he's actually a great guy. If anyone ever knew I was with him again, his reputation would be shot. And while super heroes will allow everyone one romantic mistake (which is all I'll ever be called), two would be the straw that broke the camel's back. It would be the end of him.

I'm sorry Beast Boy, for all the hurt I'm causing you even as I stand in this school hallway. My heart is breaking, too.

But you know what the rules are for people like us.


End file.
